Street Fighter II (Game Boy) review "Everyone at there point in life has played a Street Fighter game. In my mind, discluding Mortal Kombat, it is the most known fighting game in America if not the world. However being deprived of the more high tech systems, my only link to Street Fighter was my little gameboy cartridge. However that link was still a good game, although not up to par with the rest of the series. "

Everyone at there point in life has played a Street Fighter game. In my mind, discluding Mortal Kombat, it is the most known fighting game in America if not the world. However being deprived of the more high tech systems, my only link to Street Fighter was my little gameboy cartridge. However that link was still a good game, although not up to par with the rest of the series.

GRAPHICS (9/15): The gameboy just can't do graphics. The characters look fine, and although grainy, they resemble the characters they are supposed to represent. The backgrounds are fairly weak, mainly because they can only be black and gray. Sure, the graphics are fine, but definitely the weakest in the entire series, basically because of the system it resides on.

SOUND (8/10): For a gameboy game this is a great achievement. The sound track is huge, as you can see if you look through the sound test area. Nothing memorable, but it definitely does the job. THere are also many sound effects, and although lackluster they differ fairly well.

GAMEPLAY (23/50): Now this isn't bashing the Street Fighter series, for I love it. However, Street Fighter II on the gameboy is significantly the weakest in the series, for multiple things. The controls, the amount of characters, the modes, and the addictiveness is severely down from the rest of the series.

There are only nine characters in Street Fighter II, however they do have the favorites. Personally I use Ken, for he is my favorite, but there are eight others to choose from. They all have their own array of moves, however in truth the power and timing is similiar from character to character.

Now in the past there really were only three modes of play in fighters. Arcade, Vs Mode, and Survival (some even without Survival). Street Fighter II has all three of those. However the Vs Mode lacks alot, cause really no one used Link Cables in the day of original Gameboy, and that was the only way to do it. The Arcade Mode you go through the 9 fighters in no set order (beside M. Bison last) in a best of three. This is the typical fighting way. Survival you fight until you die, and you slowly regain your health. However the regain is completely random amounts. These three modes are all there, and do what they are supposed to. But it really isn't enough to hold this game above water.

CONTROLS (2/10): You have to use button combinations to pull off modes. This means you will have to go online or experiment to discover a long combination to do a little move. This works with other Street Fighter games, cause they are not too difficult, but these combinations are hard. There is also non-responsive controls that will make it even harder. This makes Street Fighter II do what most Gameboy fighters do. The best method is jumping and either punching or kicking. This is cheap, but the best method to win.

REPLAYABILITY (4/10): There is only so much you can do with the modes available. You can train yourself with 9 different characters, but it gets irritating fairly fast doing that. Or you can jump through a few survivals and a few arcade modes, which are fairly easy and bland. There is 5 difficulties, which differ and you should be fine.

DIFFICULTY (5/5): Five levels of difficulty that affects how good the computer AI is. Level 1 is fairly easy for a begginer, while level 5 pushes the expert.

OVERALL (51/100): Street Fighter II is a good game, but it does not hold up to the series standards. Anyone looking for a good fighter should look somewhere else within this same series, and anyone looking for a good fighter on the original gameboy, well will not be pleased. In truth this is easily one of the better fighters for the weak gameboy, but comparing it to the rest of the systems this is just another cheap game from a great series.

Community review by ratking (July 31, 2002) A bio for this contributor is currently unavailable, but check back soon to see if that changes. If you are the author of this review, you can update your bio from the Settings page.